European Prospects

This morning started the third Nike International Junior Tournament Qualification event in Belgrade. Eight teams compete for one spot in the Final 8 that will be played in Barcelona in May. The tournament is well covered by a multitude of specialized media outlets but also a large number of NBA scouts. Let’s check what happened this morning.

FMP – ALBA Berlin

We started the day with the opening game between FMP and ALBA Berlin. As expected, the German team was not close to have a chance to win this one, the talent level of the Serbian team was simply to big for a limited ALBA squad. Josip Peric did some damage for the Germans in the beginning of the game but at halftime, the combined efforts of Nenad Miljenovic, Nemanja Bezbradica and an excellent Stefan Popovski-Turanjanin made already a large break for the hosts. In the second half, the domination continued and FMP came to a large 110-65 win.

Stats: Stefan Popovski-Turanjanin 24pts (5/8 2FGs – 3/4 3FGs), 6rebs, 1stl, 28rkg; Nenad Miljenovic 14pts (4/7 2FGs), 5rebs, 3stls, 7asts, 29rkg

USK Future Stars – Partizan Belgrade

In a much more disputed game, Partizan Belgrade overcame the Czech team from USK Future Stars 68-60. Even if we could only follow the second half, it was really worth as both teams feature a large number of interesting players. Vukasin Vujovic was doing a lot of good stuff in the paint for Partizan while Nikola Radicevic took too many shots (5/17 FGs). For USK, Tomas Kyzlink was particularly impressive with his 21pts, 11rebs effort. Partizan looks a lot stronger than last season and with this win, they are already nearly qualified for the semi-finals as we do not see USK beat FMP or Partizan losing to ALBA Berlin.

Stats: Tomas Kyzlink 21pts (6/12 2FGs – 2/4 3FGs), 11rebs, 2stls, 5tos, 21rkg; Vukasin Vujovic 24pts (9/14 2FGs), 7rebs, 25rkg

Red Star – Union Olimpija

In a very interesting contest, Red Star managed to beat the Slovenian team in the closing minutes after a great individual performance of Aleksandar Cvetkovic. The Serbian PG was really the man who mattered the most for Red Star as the team struggled always when he was on the bench. He found his team mates very well in the beginning but also disappeared over long stretches during the game. Ivan Marinkovic was a huge presence in the paint for the Serbians where he had a good battle with the big Ziga Dimec on the Slovenian side. But it was Luka Rupnik who was responsible for most of the good plays of Olimpija (assisted 15 and scored 7 baskets of 34 in total of his team). He got some support by Erjon Kastrati but they were making so bad choices or missing shots in the money time when it mattered the most so that Red Star brought this one home and will most likely be in the semi-final.

Stats: Aleksandar Cvetkovic 28pts (11/16 2FGs), 6rebs, 5stls, 11asts, 4tos, 42rkg; Luka Rupnik 18pts (5/11 2FGs – 2/6 3FGs), 3rebs, 4stls, 15asts, 5tos, 26rkg

INSEP – Beovuk

Not much to say about this game as I did not follow it.